I actually caught this post via Bob Wan-Qi Kim’s Twitter feed, but he argues in a post to his “Sparkah” blog that he gets more marketing value out of his Facebook page.  Care to compare?

The town of Darlington in the United Kingdom is fully entering the 21st century by harnessing the power of social media.  It wanted to more easily interact with the populace, and get the word out on events happening in Darlington, so they have employed a full time “Tweeter” to tweet information to followers regarding Darlington events and local news.

The New York Times has more real world examples of how Facebook has helped small businesses, and encourages small business owners looking for inexpensive ways to market themselves, to take a look at the power of Facebook.

It feels like users are finally getting the hang of LinkedIn, or at least the buzz is big enough (with a little help from a tough job market), that people are checking it out.  But the power of a social network is usually its breadth, and that seems to be where LinkedIn is heading, according to company reports, which released the news that LinkedIn has now reached 50 million users: potential clients and job seekers all.

Still trying to figure out how exactly the “BidSimulator” Google launched last month for Ad Words, can help you bid more efficiently?  Google has released a tutorial that might help you.

“What’s the big deal” about the new Google Insights?  Google Insights for Search is like taking a peak into the demand of something, instead of the supply.

After several recent months of unprecedented growth, Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter are starting to see users maximize their large userbases. They are starting to become places where people ask for advice on where to find quality merchandise and services from trusted sources: their friends.

Officially acknowledging, and perhaps attempting to capitalize on the growing trend of businesses (small and large) utilizing Twitter as an important tool for interacting with customers, Twitter has published their official guide for business use of Twitter.  Whether expert or naif, anybody with a brand will probably want to check it out.

A lot has been made of Twitter use by larger companies to interact directly with customers, sometimes more quickly and effectively than with more traditional customer service tools, such as telephone, email or even letters.  Twitter has made it possible to get real time information out to customers much more quickly.  And customers have used it in the other direction, to send immediate feedback to companies.

While much as been made of the Comcast & Whole Food models, smaller companies are using Twitter in very inventive ways, that actually don’t just benefit their marketing profile, but benefit their bottom line.  An article in the New York Times, discusses some real world examples.

We can finally say, that we are part of the “Expression Engine 2.0 Beta 1”.  But unfortunately we can not say more than that.  I’m not sure if we can say that we can’t say more than we are a part of Expression Engine 2.0 Beta 1.  I should stop before I mention how cool it is or how much easier it will be for you to run your site using it.  Oops.

Has the “tipping point” finally been reached for online ad revenue? 

While the web is certainly “ubiquitous”, and seemingly fertile ground for advertising revenue, it is also well known that more traditional businesses (newspapers, magazines, television), for which ad revenue has been their life-blood, have had a hard time converting high returns for online ads, because they just haven’t had the monopolies on viewership to justify the rates.

Now perhaps that trend is turning the corner?  According to recent reports, television media companies are reporting for the first time, that based on viewership, they will begin charging more for online ad rates than for prime-time tv advertising spots.

Wondering how other companies are utilizing Twitter?  Maybe looking for an exchange of ideas with someone in the same field?  ExecTweets is still in Beta, but they are aggregating what seem to be “verified” accounts of CEOs from various industries.  Check to see if anybody’s Tweeting information that might be helpful to you and your business here.

For those businesses who have pages on Facebook, and want to “lock-in” their vanity URL, in order to make sure that potential customers or partners can find them, the basic requirement is that it must have at least 1,000 fans to even attempt to lock in the name.  According to All Facebook, one way around this is to “apply” to reserve a username, but the catch is that the business name has to have a trademark. 

So guess the bottom line is to continue using those strategies to build your fan base, so you can then reserve that URL.

“All Facebook”, a blog chronicling trends and changes on Facebook has developed a quick 10-step guide to maximizing the power of the “Pages” feature on Facebook.  Check it out to see if any suggested strategies might work for you and your brand.

Time Magazine explores how Twitter has tapped into an innate desire for people to connect, and turned a seemingly innocuous 140 characters into powerful snippets of exchange.